On September 1st, 2009 Speechi became the first company to adopt the “Altruistic Capital” business model: 10% of its capital now belongs to the International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP), Eugène Rutagarama’s NGO. Eugène was awarded the Goldman Prize in 2001 and IGCP leads an outstanding conservation work of the very few last mountain gorillas in Rwanda. IGCP is now one of Speechi’s shareholders. It will from now on get 10% of all of our yearly profits. If Speechi were ever to be sold, IGCP would get a 10% cut of the deal.

Altruistic Capital is a donation in shares. Its goal is to assist public interest causes by giving them access to the substantial financial resources of private companies’ capital.

This preface is first and foremost a call to entrepreneurs. If there is one thing Eugène Rutagarama has shown in his life – the one thing I derived from our chats – it’s that every one of us can make a difference.

Entrepreneurs face a constant struggle in today’s economy, they are overwhelmed by daily tasks to the point that it’s almost impossible for them to act sustainably or altruistically over the long term. They can now very easily achieve this goal by embracing the Altruistic Capital model.

Altruistic Capital can be adopted by any company regardless of its area of activity. Each entrepreneur is free to select his non-profit organization and to decide what percentage of its capital should be donated. The NGO’s goal doesn’t have to be related to the company’s activity. The company’s profitability as well as the financial resources available to the entrepreneur are not hindered by such a donation. The company retains all of its performance and competitive edge and can even gain from the positive impact the donation may have on its public image.

In fact the more the company grows and develops, the more it contributes to its cause, one of its shareholders.

The main point here is for non-profit organizations to gain access to equity-based resources comparable to those of private companies, enabling them to act with comparable forces. Way too often do humanitarian efforts come to a screeching halt when Economic Interests take over.

Why the gorillas ? Much as for the White Whale, the Old Man’s fish, they stand for humanity itself. Most of Eugène Rutagarama’s preservation quest started after he escaped the Rwandan Genocide where his family was slaughtered.

Gorillas are also a personal and emotional choice. They inspire me, I’d like for my children to be able to see them someday – or at the very least know they exist somewhere outside of a zoo. Somehow it’s a choice from the heart – based on feelings I would have a hard time justifying rationally to anyone accusing me of excessive mushiness. This said, materialism – the holy grail of the past century – has caused millions of deaths. And we can now see the so called economic “logic” endangering the entire planet.

It’s time to give feelings a try.

Version 3.5.0.9 lets yous automatically manage all Speechi licences, including Speechi Light free licence.

After installing Speechi, open PowerPoint and select the licence manager in the speechi menu.

Click on the “Get your free licence” button.

Enter your email as a “New user”, then finish completing the registration form.

Your Speechi Light code is immediately emailed to you.

When you receive it, enter Licence Manager again, click on “Get your free licence” button, paste it at the bottom of the form and click on “Register licence”.

A podcast lets you create a list of audio files that users and students can subscribe to. When you update this list (what you can do automatically with Speechi 3.0), students automatically download or access the updates and can listen to them via iTunes or any RSS reader.

(Suite…)

The new Speechi site is the result of A LOT of efforts. We felt that the previous site did not properly target the North American market. It had been designed 3 years ago when our only product was Speechi, and today we feature a full range of products: Speechi, Speechi Live, Speechi Share and of course, they are all integrated to Interactive Whiteboards.

We receive more than 10 customer questions a day and some of there are really so valuable that we think the answers should be made available to everyone…
So we remade the site, with an improved design (at least, I hope it’s improved) but most important an improved structure and a better architecture.
This site has been thought so that :

• it will be able to contain all our products (existing and new ones) and still remain very structured and consistent.
• the blog is fully integrated in the site, so we can keep communicating an a daily basis (or almost)
• the knowledge base (FAQ section) will be made available to every one. (right now, we just entered 15 FAqs, but we have about 200 FAQs in our support knowledge base and they will all be progressively entered.
• The store is also completely integrated into the site

We have evaluated lots of Content Management Systems before development and finally we have chosen WordPress because of the simplicity to enter new content. It’s been quiet a story to finalize but now that we’re there, I feel there is no limit about how this site can grow and live.
Oh and by the way, I am perfectly conscious that we still have some layout problems (I think minor) and we now plan to solve them gradually but if you see anything that’s not working right, your comment is more than welcome.
Your comment about how you like the new site compared to the old one is also more than welcome !